For some, the idea sounds like a dream: to study by the sea. It is for my students too, but for very different reasons.
In a small makeshift tent on the beach in winter, the air is cold, and the sea is loud, and when it rains our tent refuses to keep us dry. My students greet me as I enter, and together we begin with a song, and then I start my English lesson. I like to begin my lessons with singing. I think it offers a moment to emotionally release everything held inside and gives a little comfort before we begin our lesson.
My students are all girls. The school holds classes three days a week for female students and three days for male students, as we can’t accommodate both groups on the same day.
There are a number of emergency schools in Gaza now, set up in tents or shelters. Because of the war, all the old schools are gone, but the thirst for learning, regardless of hunger, remains strong. Despite the extreme shortage of all school supplies and, to top it off, the collective suffering from painful diseases due to the frightening spread of insects and rodents, my students continue to show up.
Seventh-grade student Sama says she loves English very much and wants more lessons after class. Sama does not even have a school bag, a book, or a pen. Another student, Hala, asked me to make a school radio programme. Though she suffers from severe pain and has spent many days in hospital, she looks forward to the possibility.
Ask my students what they want to be, and they’ll all tell you, with enthusiasm — teacher, artist, actress, mother, doctor, housewife — they all have their dreams. But the biggest dream, above all else, is the school they remember before the war, the school that carved the path towards those dreams with structure and order in safety.
How do they possess this determination? How do they manage to keep going?
I ask myself, how can we continue?
We are here by the sea, a place for relaxation and enjoyment. Sometimes it feels like a fantasy, as if we are living in a movie and none of it is real. I remember the first time I saw a group of students revising on the beach. No books, paper or pens. They were drawing their notes in the sand. My heart was so overwhelmed by their love for learning that I could not hold back my tears.
Later, I realized that what empowers me to continue is their determination, discipline, and incredible insistence on success and excellence. They are not superheroes. They are just children, dreaming students who wish for a future that grants them the ability to fly, that offers them freedom and ordinary lives.
All my words fall short in front of their stories. I am here, and these are my beautiful students, a generation challenging itself to move forward.
I wish to convey their hope and dreams to the whole world.
Shirin Abedinirad, Tide, 2019. Land art, Currumbin, Australia. Presented at the Swell Sculpture Festival, the work draws on Attar’s Mantiq al-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds) and its mystical journey through the valleys of self-realization, invoking what the artist describes as “the search for Truth.” With a wooden door buried in the sand and a mirror reflecting sea and viewer alike, the installation becomes a threshold of quest, reflection, and transformation. Artwork courtesy of featured artist Shirin Abedinirad.
